California AG Rob Bonta leads states to block Medicaid data sharing

More than a dozen Democratic-led states are accusing the Trump administration of violating a federal court order by sharing Medicaid data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asking a judge to enforce the ruling.

The states’ complaint asks the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to enforce its existing injunction blocking HHS from sharing Medicaid data with ICE.

“The Trump administration appears to be defying a direct court order preventing it from sharing the personal and sensitive data of individuals, including U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. This is invasive and deeply troubling,” said California Attorney General Bonta, who led the 22-state coalition. “When Californians enrolled in Medi-Cal, they did so knowing that their data would not be used for purposes unrelated to the administration of this program. I urge the court to enforce its prior order and make clear that these safeguards exist for anyone legally residing in the United States.”

The complaint follows a lawsuit California filed in July 2025 against the Trump administration. The lawsuit accused Health and Human Services of violating federal law through its “mass transfer of sensitive Medicaid data” of legal permanent and temporary residents. The lawsuit also argued that sharing personal information would likely create a “chilling effect on individuals’ willingness to enroll in Medicaid programs” for which they are legally eligible.

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A split image shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents patrolling Terminal C at LaGuardia Airport on March 24, 2026 in New York (left), and U.S. President Donald Trump arriving at Miami International Airport on March 27, 2026 in Miami, Florida (right). President Trump deployed ICE agents to airports due to TSA staffing shortages, under the supervision of border czar Tom Homan. (Michael M. Santiago and Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

A federal judge ruled last December that the Trump administration was not allowed to collect the personal information of legal permanent residents or citizens, but could continue to collect basic information from individuals such as addresses, dates of birth and immigration status of residents with temporary status. However, the scope of data that can be collected is limited and cannot include sensitive health information.

The attorneys general accuse Health and Human Services of sharing “a large and complex set” of data on Medicaid beneficiaries with ICE, which is a violation of a federal court ruling allowing the exchange of limited personal information but excluding information from lawful permanent residents. The complaint also accuses the Trump administration of failing to share its criteria for determining whether a resident is “lawfully present.”

Dan Greenberg, senior legal fellow at the CATO Institute, told Fox News Digital that there is “a strong possibility” that HHS and ICE violated the district court’s order.

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“The reason this is a strong possibility is because DHHS communications apparently indicate that it shared a ‘vast and complex’ data set on Medicaid beneficiaries with ICE,” Greenberg said. “This sentence suggests that the data set shared with ICE may have included information that falls outside the scope of the court’s order. It’s a question of fact: which is why the states are now asking the court to force the federal government to explain exactly what was shared and how it is now being used.”

Greenberg also pointed out that the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System database does not “appear to have a simple or direct way to identify/distinguish undocumented immigrants,” making “information sharing consistent with this court order difficult, if not impossible.”

“The TMSIS identifies people who are only eligible for Medicaid emergency services, but the problem is that this category of people includes both undocumented immigrants and those who are legally present,” Greenberg said. “In short, it’s as if the court order said that only certain information in a particular file should be released, but there is reason to believe that DHHS has decided that — because they don’t know how to separate that particular type of information — they may have turned over the entire binder.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building is shown in Washington, D.C. (Saül Loeb/AFP)

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In addition to California, the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the governor of Kentucky signed the complaint.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and Health and Human Services for comment.